Arizona Yawning Over Democratic Race : Caucuses: Only a 6% turnout is forecast, and a shot at delegates appears to be open for Tsongas, Clinton and Brown.

Liz Chavez remembers having heard something about presidential candidate Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. coming to town this week.

But for the 35-year-old Phoenix resident, Saturday’s Arizona Democratic caucuses seemed pretty far removed from her daily life. The arrival of another notable, Oakland A’s slugging king Jose Canseco, was another matter.

“People are more excited about spring training starting than about the election race,” said Chavez, a court reporter trainee, after watching Canseco take batting practice at Municipal Stadium the other day. “I’m a Democrat, but I’m not planning to vote Saturday--in fact, I really haven’t given the election much thought yet.”

So it goes in Arizona, where Democratic Party officials are forecasting a 6% turnout for their presidential caucuses.

The caucuses are the first step in the process to choose state delegates to the national convention. Participants list a presidential preference and pick delegates for a regional caucus next month. Candidates must meet a threshold of support. At each of the state’s 52 party districts, at least 15% of the participants must support a candidate for him to get delegates from that district. All but six members of the state’s eventual 47-member national convention delegation will be committed to candidates based on the caucus results.

With only the most fanatic party faithful headed for the caucuses, Melodee Jackson, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, said that victory is up for grabs. She said any of three candidates could win: former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton or Brown, the former governor of neighboring California.

Tsongas, who led in the only statewide pre-caucus poll, was buoyed this week by endorsements from the mayors of the state’s two largest cities, Phoenix and Tucson.

He has scheduled a last-minute Arizona campaign appearance for today to increase his visibility and to drum up new support in the wake of Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s announcement Thursday to drop out of the race.

Clinton, meanwhile, has mounted a strong direct-mail and phone-bank operation across the state.

And Brown, whose shoestring operation is being run from the living rooms of two young Phoenix supporters, could be aided by his strong environmental record, outsider image and longstanding name recognition, Jackson says.

Whoever wins could receive a slight boost heading into next week’s Super Tuesday, when 11 states will conduct primaries or caucuses. But until today, only Brown had campaigned here.

Brown, employing his increasingly familiar “hit ‘em where they ain’t” strategy, spent a full day this week blasting his absent foes on college campuses in Tucson and Tempe and at a church in Phoenix.

“We’re challenging the corrupt status quo that doesn’t serve the people,” he told enthusiastic crowds, after being introduced by longtime farm workers activist Cesar Chavez.

In response, the two front-runners sent surrogates. Clinton dispatched his wife, Hillary, to campaign; Tsongas sent his twin sister, Thaleia Tsongas Schlesinger.

Clinton has also made himself available for satellite hookup interviews with local TV stations. It was while waiting to tape one with KTSP-TV of Phoenix last week that he made his angry outburst to an aide about the Rev. Jesse Jackson over a false report that the civil rights leader was endorsing Democratic rival Tom Harkin of Iowa. Unbeknown to Clinton, the mike and camera were live; his comments were later broadcast throughout the country.

Clinton and Tsongas are expected to pick up votes Saturday that would otherwise have gone to Kerrey. The Nebraska senator had built a strong campaign organization here and had counted on a good showing as part of his unrealized Western strategy.

With the state’s unemployment rate having nearly doubled to 9.3% in the last year, economic issues are the main concern of Arizona’s 800,000 Democrats, according to party leaders.

“A lot of people have the sense that the economy needs to get moving,” director Jackson says. “The early support of Tsongas has something to do with that.”

In a statewide poll conducted shortly after his victory in the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 18, Tsongas received 26% to Clinton’s 19%. Brown, Kerrey and Harkin, who has waged a minimal campaign here, each won 3%.

But critics say the poll, released by a public television station, is outdated and has little relevance anyway because it focused on all Arizona Democrats rather than the 50,000 likely to participate in the caucuses.

Because mainly hard-core party regulars are expected at the caucuses, the results “are more likely to lean to the left than you might think for (conservative) Arizona,” said Earl De Berge of the Behavior Research Center, an independent polling firm in Phoenix.

“This kind of party election could produce a non-centrist vote,” Berge said. “Brown and Clinton could do better (than expected).”

The caucuses are open to all registered Democrats, including those who choose to declare their party affiliation Saturday.

Arizona’s Republican National Convention delegates will be chosen in a tiered process that begins next month with a series of closed caucuses held by party officials.